Daily Archives: August 3, 2011

Those of you who are card-carrying members of the “Get the Cocktail Party Out of Jax! Now!” movement no doubt will find fault with today’s post from Bill Connelly, but sometimes stats are stats, people.

… The teams we generally refer to as the toughest to beat at home are, in most cases, the toughest to beat, period. The teams with notable “homefield edges,” really, are the ones who are much more stout at home than on the road. [Emphasis added.] The list I produced by comparing home and road results against common opponents gave us an almost counter-intuitive view of home-field advantage.

Based on his metric (although he doesn’t specify the time period over which he calculates his results), Georgia ranks 111th overall. Why so low?

… Teams like LSU, Alabama, Georgia and Oregon — teams known for having loud, mostly huge (except in Oregon’s case) home crowds — have almost no “homefield edge” whatsoever because they are also likely to play quite well on the road.

It’s not the travel that’s caused Georgia to endure a 3-16 stretch in Jacksonville. It’s the Gators.

I haven’t done this is a couple of years, but I was in the mood to try again, so, in no particular order, here’s my list of 100 things I hope (yeah, not necessarily the same thing as expect) to enjoy during the 2011 college football season. A few are repeats from the earlier lists, but some pleasures are simple and timeless both.

Feel free to pile on in the comments section.

Big John Jenkins stuffing Boise State’s first rushing attempt between the tackles.

Will Muschamp, reminded of how it feels to be on the losing end of the Cocktail Party.

LSU vs. Oregon.

Life after Cam Newton.

A good night game, HDTV and a glass of Woodford Reserve at my side.

All the great SEC talent at running back.

Clouds in front of the sun, with a little breeze, during an afternoon game in September.

Lane Kiffin’s postseason irrelevancy.

TCU screwing up the Mountain West’s decision to move its game with Boise State by winning on the blue turf.

Vanderbilt upsetting an SEC team other than Georgia.

Seeing how Houston Nutt makes the Egg Bowl personal – or if Dan Mullen gets another chance to be smug.

Gus Malzahn retooling Auburn’s offense.

Branden Smith in the open field with the ball in his hands.

Florida’s October schedule.

TIAR, B!

The Army-Navy game. Just like every year.

Cracking open the first cold beer at the first tailgate of the year. Ahhhhh.

Andrew Luck’s (and Stanford’s!) performance without Jim Harbaugh.

Uga IX’s triumphant introduction.

Georgia Tech’s passing game. (Especially late in the fourth quarter.)

The dulcet tones of Uncle Verne.

Seeing how all those coaching changes at Texas work out.

Any game with more than three overtime periods.

ESPN’s Herschel Walker documentary.

A game winning 53-yard field goal from the foot of Blair Walsh.

Rivalries, of all shapes and sizes.

Mike Bobo, sticking with what works for an entire game.

Todd Grantham giving the choke sign and being rewarded in the aftermath.

The losing coach’s presser after the Michigan-Ohio State game.

The hype leading up to the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic.

The spin after the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic.

Fried chicken.

Utah in the Pac-12.

A strategically located Porta-Potty with a short line in Jacksonville. (This will always be on my list.)

The pregame flight of the Auburn eagle.

Every moment of silence from Michael Adams.

Any regular season neutral site game.

The Dream Team living up to expectations.

Another Tyler Bray bi-polar moment.

Jenkins and Geathers on the field together, blotting out the sun.

Seeing how Denard Robinson does in Al Borges’ offense.

Discovering which head coach really was on the hottest seat.

The genius of Ted Roof, post-Nick Fairley.

Tuning in to a game on ESPN I want to watch and realizing that Craig James isn’t on the broadcast crew.

Judging from the comments and e-mails I get, the greatest amount of preseason angst coming from Georgia fans is about the running backs situation. For some reason, I’m not as worried as most are about that.

… As for why we left off Mississippi State, Blutarsky? Because we liked watching them suck, so grandiose was their coach-killing horror. Plus they won four games, a lofty total for the group we described, and because they actually had a defense. The teams we described? Horrendous in every imaginable way.

I suspect his judgment is colored by gratitude over the Zooker getting Croomed.